Brentz looks to continue momentum from late 2012 into 2013

BOSTON — In the first week of last September, as Bryce Brentz was enduring an 0-for-12 start to his Triple-A career, then-PawSox manager Arnie Beyeler addressed the learning curve for his newest prospect.“It’s...

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TIM BRITTON
Posted Jan. 14, 2013 @ 1:47 pm

BOSTON — In the first week of last September, as Bryce Brentz was enduring an 0-for-12 start to his Triple-A career, then-PawSox manager Arnie Beyeler addressed the learning curve for his newest prospect.

“It’s going to take some time for him to adjust,” Beyeler said. “That’s player development. That’s why he’s up here. The adversity factor is good for these guys.”

It took Brentz just those dozen at-bats to adjust.

After that brief, rocky beginning, Brentz morphed into one of Pawtucket’s hottest hitters throughout its postseason run to the Governors’ Cup. Brentz went 2-for-5 in his last regular-season game, then 8-for-24 through the playoffs. More impressive, six of those eight hits went for extra bases.

The hope is that the late-season experience with the PawSox serves as a head start for Brentz in 2013 — the way it did for Will Middlebrooks last season. Middlebrooks, after all, couldn’t boast of any Triple-A success before exploding out of the gates in Pawtucket last April.

“It was toward the end, but I got a little feel for the league,” Brentz said Friday, while he was in town for the organization’s rookie development program. “It helps to get that little taste and know what you’re walking into. Each level as a player, especially when you’re moving up, is a new animal and a new mountain to climb. Sometimes it takes a little while for players to figure out the league and get comfortable. Having experienced that, I think I have an edge going into next season.”

“You definitely hear that from some guys [that] the second time around, no matter how long the first time was, you feel a little more comfortable in your surroundings,” said Ben Crockett, director of player development. “Comfort level is always helpful.”

Setting the bar at Middlebrooks — who didn’t spend a day in Pawtucket after getting promoted to Boston the first week of May — is perhaps a little high for Brentz. Remember, Brentz hit .216 last April as he learned how to adjust to pitchers with plus-offspeed stuff unafraid to mix it up in fastball counts.

That was the bigger learning curve for Brentz, and it’s a skid he steered out of while at Portland. As the 24-year-old has progressed through the minors, those periods of adjustment have gotten shorter and shorter. An always streaky hitter is doing his best to limit the low points.

“The thing we’ve preached to him is consistency,” Crockett said. “He has a really good feel for the mistakes that he makes. He usually knows what he’s doing at the plate, if something has gone awry. A lot of it is approach-based. When he’s locked in, he’s a pretty good hitter. The more often that he can be in that position, the better that he’ll be.”

There are still those questions about his approach and whether Brentz can grow more patient at the plate in 2013. But 2012 was a solid developmental year to back up his breakout 2011.

Brentz is known throughout the system for his power: His 47 home runs over the last two seasons tie him with Middlebrooks for second-most in the organization, behind only David Ortiz. The right fielder, though, would like to overcome that basic typecasting and prove he can be an all-around performer for the Red Sox. He didn’t always feel that way.

“I was thinking, after I got drafted, ‘I need to show people my power. I need to show them what I can do,’” he said of his time in short-season Lowell, in 2010. “I scuffled so bad. The year after that, that’s all I was worried about, my hitting. It just comes with different parts of the game, knowing your weaknesses and working on them. Now it’s being a complete player — on the bases, in the outfield, at the plate, as a teammate in the clubhouse. It’s about doing the right thing, and that comes along with experience.”

On Friday, he admitted he didn’t focus enough on his defense in years past. When contemplating the impact his right-handed power bat could have at Fenway Park, he maturely began his answer by saying how easy it would be to lose his approach staring down the Green Monster.

“For me as a hitter, I've got to stay more geared toward right-center,” he said, adding that opposing hitters in Greenville and Portland — both teams boast their own high walls in short left field — often “lose the outside corner of the plate, and the strike zone goes out the window and they walk back to the dugout.”

Of course, Brentz couldn’t end his answer there. He had to think, just for a minute, what it would be like to grab a hold of one himself at Fenway — a prospect as tantalizingly close as it’s ever been for him.

“If you get it, the Monster’s not that far away,” he said with a smile. “It’s pretty fun when you put one over.”